Public Speaking- Bring Your Energy Not Anxiety

There is something extremely uneasy about standing in front of a group and having to give a presentation or speech. As you stand up in front of the group it becomes more and more alarming that all eyes in the room are on you. In fact, hours and even days before you have your public speaking engagement, the anticipatory anxiety of it is probably rearing its ugly head as well. The looming dread that each and every second of your talk has to be insightful, informative, and entertaining easily throws us into a state of anxiety and stress. On paper, public speaking seems like a relatively simple task: prepare for the talk, stand up, and present the information. But, if it is seemingly easy to do, then why is it the biggest fears people have?

If you suffer from fear of public speaking you are not alone. Many people who stand up in front of a group tend to get overly stressed, before, during, and even after the talk is done. Clients have told me on various occasions that standing in front of the group, whether large or small, gives them a sense of being judged. While a certain amount of stress and anxiety can typically be channeled into a motivational force, for people with a fear of public speaking, this anxiety surpasses that threshold and throws a person into a state of panic. You heart rate increases, palms begin to sweat, you might feel nauseous and dizzy, and informational recall is blocked. Despite having prepared, outlined, studied, and practiced your talk over and over again, the looming sense of “what ifs” can be devastating. The public speaker has thrown themselves into a downward spiral, thereby feeling out of control and lacking the ability to present information coherently. Typically the presenter can struggle through the talk, but with each passing second time goes slowly, and looking up and out at the crowd can cause the “deer in headlights” reaction. Standing alone in front of the public eye, your subconscious mind kicks into fight or flight and is screaming “GET OFF THE STAGE!”

But why does this fearful reaction happen? A fear of public speaking develops for a variety of reasons. Maybe you gave a talk in school where afterwards the teacher asked you a number of questions you didn’t know the answers to and you sat down feeling a sense of under-accomplishment despite having what you thought was a flawless presentation. Or maybe you watched someone else give a talk who flubbed the talk completely by having something embarrassing happen. God forbid that could ever happen to you. Is it possible the anticipation of standing outside before your talking listening to everyone cramp information in last minute made you feel like you weren’t as prepared as you had thought you were, causing you to doubt yourself the moment you enter the classroom or venue of your talk? Or maybe, you didn’t prepare for a talk that you had to give or you get cold called in the classroom to answer a question by the teacher. You get blindsided and feel like you have been immediately and unwillingly opened up to failure. All of these things can get stored in the subconscious mind as knowns. They can elicit the fearful feelings without you even noticing. Your subconscious mind reacts before you are even consciously aware of it. And despite your best efforts to calm the subconscious (the 90% of your mind) the fearful feelings, anxiety, and stress are upon you.

But what if you could change those negative associations into motivational tools? Hypnotherapy can help you create an overall sense of wellbeing and state of being in control before you give your talk. It can help you calm your mind and rests assure that you can have the ability to present all the information you have prepared without fear. By relaxing the subconscious mind, increasing your memory and recall, you can rest assured that the information you have prepared in important, pertinent, and that you don’t have to go through your speech with a sense of dread.

Hypnosis can you create the feelings that you want to feel before you step out in front of the presenting something interesting you have learned and want to share with people. Even if public speaking isn’t something you have chosen to do, we have all been faced with having to do it. By mastering the ability to feel calm and relaxed before, during, and after can open a variety of doorways public eye. In addition, it can help you turn the anticipatory anxiety into excitement.